Asia’s Environment Becoming ‘Full-Blown Crisis’

By N. GUNASEKARAN

The National Institution for Transforming India (Niti Aayog), a policy think tank of the Government of India, recently released a shocking report on India’s water crisis. It predicted that the water shortage “could explode into a full-blown crisis” and about 600 million people would be affected by water shortage in the coming years.

The report also revealed the shocking truth that “about two lakh people (200,000) die every year due to inadequate access to safe water.” The consumption of contaminated water caused these deaths, because nearly 70% of water available for the poor was severely contaminated, and India is placed at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index.

This precarious situation is developing in many countries, in Asia. Not only the water crisis; the manifold dangers are imminent due to the all-round environmental crisis in Asia, particularly in South Asia.

Today, in Asia, the threats to the environment are more real and more intensive than anywhere else on the planet. And it is also true that there is a persisting, high demand for food, land and water due to the poor living standards of the majority of the population. So the challenge of balancing development and conservation is more important in Asian region. It is very difficult to meet this challenge, since the crisis is becoming more and more complex with high population density in Asia.

As part of the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), more than 130 of the region’s leading scientists and experts had undertaken a study and released a report, called “The Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Asia and the Pacific.” It showed that many of the region’s forest, alpine, wetland and coastal ecosystems are now degraded and important biodiversity resources are under threats. Climate change has been causing extreme weather and rising sea level. Increasing volume of the waste and destructive pollution are tainting water resources and polluting the air.

In the Asian region, millions of the poorest people depend on fishing and marine ecosystems for their food and livelihood requirements. If the practices of environmental degradation were continued, fishery and marine ecosystem based livelihoods are at great risk. Ocean warming, acidification, sea level rise and extreme weather events due to climate change and increased pollution are all causes for greater concern.

The critical and most serious issues that impact the daily lives of the citizens of South Asia, are mainly environmental problems linked to climate change and environmental degradation. These issues manifest in terms of increased flooding, droughts, cyclones, and other natural disasters, causing massive humanitarian crises. In India, the latest rainfall brought Kashmir on the brink of floods with raising levels of various water bodies and the people feared a repeat of the disastrous 2014 floods which marauded and devastated the valley

Rising ocean temperatures are a major reason for these floods. According to the predictions of climate scientists, over the next 40 years ,due to rising sea levels, 17% of Bangladesh’s land mass would be submerged and about 18 million be displaced. The ability to grow crops for sale or sustenance would be seriously affected in Nepal, due to the erosion of 1.7 millimeters of topsoil each year during the monsoon cycle.

The environmental degradation is happening at an unprecedented rate, and in many forms, affecting the agriculture, human health and economic growth. The forests, wetlands, and coastal ecosystems are in danger. The region’s loss of native varieties of cultivable plants is the highest in the world. These rapid changes had increased disease and pest outbreaks. For instance, In the State of Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific, a land-border with Indonesia, which is home to the largest stock of tropical rainforest remaining in Asia, more than 12% of the land had been handed out to corporate timber companies.

Many incidents damaging the air, ocean, fishing, etc., have been occurring continuously across Asia due to either pollution or warmer temperatures. Recently, the emissions of microscopic particulate matter known as PM2.5, with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, hit heavily in Beijing and surrounding Hebei province in China. The people have felt, in their daily lives, the negative effects of the model of accelerating Big Business at the cost of environmental degradation. In China, 18,000 polluting companies were punished, with huge fines of 870 million Yuan ($180 million) and closed a large number of factories that violated environmental norms. And the government announced to enforce bigger emissions cuts to avoid a repeat of the high levels of choking smog that enveloped the northern regions in this year.

Obviously, the persisting high demand for livelihood issues like food, land and water in Asia is still necessitating rapid developmental activities. However, pace of development must not harm the ecological sytem. So the challenge is of balancing development and conservation. The drive for corporate profits would always destroy this balance and increase the environmental collapse.

The regional powers in South Asia have to work together on these issues since they are major threats to the daily lives of the peole, particularly the poor in the entire region. South Asian states could insist to add environmental security clauses to their security and trade deals with advanced countries like the US. They have unitedly and more firmly voice for environmental issues at international forums. This is now indispensable, due to the current Trump administration for its actions like appointing climate change skeptics to key Cabinet positions and withdrawing of the Paris Climate Accord. The American fossil fuel corporate industry, with the blessings of the Trump administration prioritized short-term corporate profits above all else. This would have serious impact on Asia and welfare and lives of Asian people. Also it would obstruct the efforts of the US-friendly governments in Asia, to take aggressive measurer to prevent global warming.

Serious efforts are required urgently to make fundamental changes in protecting and sustaining Southeast Asian forests. That would benefit the global community with reductions in emissions with substantial positive impact on global warming. The working people of Southeast Asia have to pay serious attention to maintain timber and non-timber forest production, water supply, and other ecosystem and protect them from the corporate looting. They have to give pressure to the governments of the South Asian countries to nurture the unity of the south Asian countries, which is the key to significantly reducing deforestation and mitigating its impacts.

N. Gunasekaran is a political activist and writer based in Chennai, India.

From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2018

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